


our hearts on the line

by jukeboxhound



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Family, Gen, Light Angst, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27032698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: The Sisters Farron each have their own way of protecting the other.
Relationships: Serah Farron & Lightning
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	our hearts on the line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chofi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chofi/gifts).



> Written five years ago based on a prompt from Chofitia and I just rediscovered it in the depths of my computer. :D
> 
> **CW** : reference to parental death; parentification of oldest sibling; mildly cynical take on child welfare services; mild fighting violence.  
> 

By the time they realized anything was wrong, Mother was already being taken to the hospital. Her two young daughters stood on the front steps of their home clutching one another’s hands until the lights and the siren faded and the neighborhood was quiet again.

…

Serah was thirteen and sweet and stubborn as a goddamn adamantoise. “I told you to be home before ten, Serah,” said Claire, fifteen and not sweet at all, who was only three inches taller but might as well have been a sentinel tower. She looked at her little sister and saw _small_ and _fragile_ and thought of a pair of headstones that she never, ever visited (but Serah did), and sharp crackles of fear pulled her spine up straight and hard.

“It’s _ten-thirty_ , Sis,” Serah groaned, “I was just a couple blocks away – “

"Do you know what could have happened?” And she wouldn’t have known until it was too late, until the lights and the siren had faded.

“Most fatal accidents happen in the home, so by that logic I’m better off not being here at all,” Serah snapped back.

“I’m in charge here,” Claire started, knowing it was a mistake as soon as the syllables sparked off her lips, and Serah cried, “You’re not _Mom_ , Claire!”

Claire reared back with the blow, and the kitchen was abruptly ringing with silence. The sisters stared at one another for a long moment.

"No,” said Claire, in a voice as low and terrible as a storm, “but this is all we have, now. And you’ll be home by ten.”

Serah didn’t speak to her for three days. On the fourth, Claire opened her bag lunch in the school cafeteria and found that the sandwich she’d cobbled together the night before had been replaced with a small bento, thin shavings of carrot arranged into the word POOPFACE with a tiny radish heart on top of the rice. She set the box down, put her face in her hands, and laughed through her tears.

…

This time, their three-month review was conducted by a woman with a kind voice under a knife-edge smile. Claire sat on the couch beside Serah, so close that their bony elbows rubbed against each other, and met the woman’s smile with a carefully blank mask.

“How are you two doing?” began the opening volley.

“Fine,” Claire said tersely.

“We’re great,” Serah added, smiling. Her shoulders were relaxed in a gentle slope, her hands resting over her modest skirt, her hair pulled to the side in a messy, girlish ponytail.

“No fighting?”

Serah laughed. It didn’t sound at all like her usual laugh: too light, too soft, too childish. “We’re sisters, Ma’am, I think a little arguing is pretty much a requirement. But Claire’s been taking great care of me.”

The woman asked if their financial allowance for groceries and utilities was enough, how they were doing in school, what their plans were for the future. Serah smiled and Claire watched.

At the end, the woman said, “I’m worried about you two. It’s not easy being a sixteen-year-old taking on so much responsibility, Claire, and I know it’s tough when your sister also has to be a parent, Serah. I’ll talk to my coworkers and review your case, but perhaps it’d be better to think about finding a more stable environment.”

“No,” Claire said flatly before Serah could smile and say something charming. “You aren’t taking Serah away from me.”

“Claire, please, that’s not – ”

Claire stood up. “She is my sister and I will do what’s best for her. That doesn’t mean putting her in a strange home with strange people so that the government can save a little money and not have to put up with us anymore.”

“Please,” the woman tried, but the false sympathy overlaying ruthless Sanctum sensibility had _no place_ in this household. Claire stalked to the front door, opened it, and held it until the woman had left.

Serah asked, “Claire? What if she does make us go somewhere else?”

Claire looked around their tiny, government-issued apartment, and then she turned to Serah, who looked right back with wide eyes and none of the cheery confidence she’d pulled on for the last two hours.

“I won’t let her.”

…

The mat felt like stone when Claire’s already bruised side landed hard on it. Air whistled desperately through her gritted teeth as the trainer stood over her and barked, “Again.”

Eighteen years old but feeling eighty, she dragged herself upright and locked her knees so the shaking in her thighs wouldn’t send her toppling right back over. The first few times she’d gone down, a few of the recruits ringing the training room had tittered, but now they were silent, waiting for her to _stay down_ the way she should have several rounds ago.

The trainer beckoned with a callused, scarred hand, and Claire nearly begged _no_. She just wanted to go home and sleep until her sister woke up her up for dinner and they could sit together at the kitchen table, one of the few traditions they’d kept after their parents died, one of the few times they could be in the same room and not end up mired in thick, suffocating tension.

“Just give it up, Farron,” someone called.

The trainer wasn’t wearing any particular expression, neither disappointed nor approving, but it was still a needle under her skin that made her shift her weight to her back foot and force herself forward.

She hit the mat again. The air left her lungs in a harsh gust, blood filling her mouth where her teeth were jarred against the soft tissue on the inside of her cheek. Dark blurs took their time resolving back into the shapes of the other recruits. This time, when she tried to get her hands and knees under her body, she managed a few inches before her elbows gave out and she ended up gasping against the mat. Blood spattered onto the canvas and stained her lips.

“We’re done here,” called out the trainer. “Dismissed.”

With a few lingering looks, the room emptied.

“Farron,” the trainer started before he amended, “Claire, you need to stop doing this.”

“I can do it,” she breathed, managing only the thinnest sound, and he sighed as he got down on one knee.

“You need to pay attention to your limits, Claire. Push them, but don’t try to trample past them. One of these days you’re going to push yourself too far and end up with permanent damage.”

“I can _do it_ ,” she repeated into the mat.

"What about your sister?”

That was the crutch she needed to inch her way up to a sitting position, hissing when pain shot through her torso and automatically wrapping an arm around the vulnerability. She had to swallow a few times to get the blood out of her mouth. “I’m doing this for her.”

“Really? Do you think she’d be happy to know that?”

Claire stared down at the weave of her uniform trousers and didn’t respond. The trainer sighed again.

“Go home and get some rest, Claire. If I see your face here tomorrow I’ll put you on suspension.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can when you’re being an idiot. Turn off the lights and lock the door behind you when you can actually stand up again.”

…

“What’s this?”

Serah glanced over her shoulder but didn’t stop scrubbing down the soapy pot in the sink. Claire – _Lightning_ – was leaning a hip against the kitchen table and skimming a paper stamped with official letterhead, signed by an official notary. She told herself she hadn’t been dreading the moment Lightning came home for this exact reason.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Serah said cheerfully.

“It’s from the Department of Family and Domestic Affairs, and you say it isn’t anything to worry about?”

“I took care of it.”

“Serah, this says they were trying to put us under an unscheduled review.”

“And I convinced them not to.” Serah scrubbed a little harder at a nonexistent bit of crusted sauce.

“ _How?”_

“I talked to them.” In a manner of speaking. Some flies were caught with honey; some deserved the vinegar. Perhaps, she thought wryly, she wasn’t so different from her sister after all.

“And they listened?”

Serah dropped the pot and sponge to brace her hands against the counter for a few breaths. Finally she straightened and walked over to stand in front of Lightning. “There are other ways of fighting besides a gunblade.”

“Serah…”

Serah reached out and took hold of Lightning’s necklace with fingertips turned to prunes from the dishwater, rubbing her thumb over its little crystals and the sharp, merciless shape of the silver. Her other hand closed gently around Lightning’s bicep, covering up a fading bruise. “You don’t have to fight all the battles alone, Sis.”

Lightning swallowed visibly, wrapped her own hand around Serah’s slimmer, unmarked arm.

“…I guess you’re right.”


End file.
